Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1955.
Description
Beginning with Greece's earliest rites, this volume traces the development of the classic religion of the Olympian gods and discusses the religion of the philosophic schools of the fourth century BC. It portrays the emergence of Christianity and concludes with an account of the efforts of Julian the Apostate to restore a new variety of paganism.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AndreasJ
A self-admittedly incomplete history of (pagan) Greek religion from Archaic times to late antiquity and the triumph of Christianity. The titular five stages are "primitive" early Greek religion (allegedly) characterized by agricultural cults; the "classical" worship of the Olympian pantheon; the
It's a book that could hardly have been written today, with its matter-of-fact pronouncement that this or that religious conception is high or progressive, or the opposite, that this or that superstition is typical of primitive man*. Yet Murray is erudite** and fair-minded, attempting to understand the ancients on their own terms, render their ideas understandable if not agreeable. I don't quite now what I think about the book overall; it's hardly what I'd recommend to anyone wanting to learn about Greek paganism, whether they want something popularly accessible or more academic, yet it was not an unpleasant read.
* Murray takes for granted that Greeks of the earlier Archaic period were "primitive", at least as far as their religious ideas were concerned. Just what "primitive" means to him here is not obvious - presumably not simply primordial, characteristic of the earliest men, since he must have been aware that the cities, metallurgy, sea-going ships, etc of the Archaic Greeks were pretty new things in the grand scheme of human existence. In particular, agricultural cults cannot be primitive in such a sense because agriculture itself is a relative novelty.
** Despite an embarassing lapse where he twice refers to the battle of Cynoscephalae when he obviously means that of Aegospotami.
Show More
religio-philosophical schools of Cynicism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism; the eclectic, mysticizing and generally ascetical cults of the Hellenistic era; and the abortive pagan revival under Emperor Julian in the fourth century AD.It's a book that could hardly have been written today, with its matter-of-fact pronouncement that this or that religious conception is high or progressive, or the opposite, that this or that superstition is typical of primitive man*. Yet Murray is erudite** and fair-minded, attempting to understand the ancients on their own terms, render their ideas understandable if not agreeable. I don't quite now what I think about the book overall; it's hardly what I'd recommend to anyone wanting to learn about Greek paganism, whether they want something popularly accessible or more academic, yet it was not an unpleasant read.
* Murray takes for granted that Greeks of the earlier Archaic period were "primitive", at least as far as their religious ideas were concerned. Just what "primitive" means to him here is not obvious - presumably not simply primordial, characteristic of the earliest men, since he must have been aware that the cities, metallurgy, sea-going ships, etc of the Archaic Greeks were pretty new things in the grand scheme of human existence. In particular, agricultural cults cannot be primitive in such a sense because agriculture itself is a relative novelty.
** Despite an embarassing lapse where he twice refers to the battle of Cynoscephalae when he obviously means that of Aegospotami.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ritaer
Well written but something of a relic of now discarded theories of cultural evolution. Does include a complete translation of Sallustius "On the Gods".
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original publication date
1924
Physical description
221 p.; 18 cm
Similar in this library
From religion to philosophy: a study in the origins of western speculation by Francis MacDonald Cornford